Asheville City Council Public Hearing B to consider conditional zoning of 275 Deaverview Road from RM-16 Residential Multi-Family High Density District to Residential Expansion District/Conditional Zone. (Documents, Presentation)

The Asheville Housing Authority is requesting approval for the first of two phases to eventually rebuild all of Deaverview Apartments. All of the planned 82 units will be offered at 60% Area Median Income or less, with some units available for households at 30% and 50% AMI. All units will also accept housing choice vouchers, and will be “designated affordable for a minimum of 30 years.”

While this project promises the kind of affordability that our community needs, we are concerned about the 30 year limit. What happens to the affordability of these units then? Will housing choice vouchers continue to be accepted? We think it’s imperative that City Council answer these questions at this important juncture in the project’s development.

It’s time to revisit the Asheville City Council’s hotel development plan

As discussed in a recent Citizen-Times article, it’s been over a year since the Asheville City Council lifted the hotel moratorium and put in place a new process for hotel development within city limits. This new process included the option for developers to circumvent going before City Council if they made various contributions to the local community, such as donating funds to affordable housing or reparations. Since these new rules took effect, “more than $1 million” has been raised, some portion of which has been designated for reparations.

We are concerned that the present rules neither slow down hotel development nor raise significant funds for reparations. When City Council approved this policy shift in February, 2021, they pledged to revisit the issue once there was data on the impact of the program. We would encourage City Council to fulfill that promise now.